


recollections

by lycanthus (timedilations)



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 06:02:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timedilations/pseuds/lycanthus
Summary: An android wakes up in a forest alone with damaged memories. Short oneshot. 9S-centric.Post ending C, major spoilers. References "The Memory Cage" side story provided in the Japanese guidebook.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended listening: [Blissful Death](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gEXkWm_SCQ)

 

 

When he wakes up, the first thing he notices is that he's crying.  

Mechanical limbs hoist his body forward. He notices belatedly that they're his own. He sits up, touches his face with a glove-covered hand. He can't feel the moisture there on his cheek, but it shines like oil on his fingers. 

The sound of running water hits him first. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light around him. Sunlight pours in through the gaps in the canopy above. On the rocks beside him, a small prism of silver lay broken. Some kind of support device, he thinks. Further off, he sees the remains of machines, bullet holes marring their metal carcasses. The spears they held now rest on the ground beside their owners. Beside him, a blindfold lays unnoticed.

He can't remember anything.

Only one thought permeates through his mind. It's like the echo of a distant melody, something distorted and hazy that he can't quite fully grasp. It's the voice of a girl whose name he can't remember. Little bits and pieces of her lay scattered about his memory terminals, stray fragments of information no longer whole enough to piece together.

Still, he collects these, guiding himself along file paths. The ruins of data structures loom in the distance. 

He approaches an object glowing in the emptiness of the terminal.  
 

— Fragment x 1 Obtained —

_My name is_   **▓▓**. _I'm here to provide support._  
  
His memory. He recognizes his own voice, even despite the corruption. He no longer remembers the context of his own words, lost along with the minutiae of his existence. What remains are vague, fleeting moments. Emotion he was never supposed to feel. The girl standing there below him as he manned some flight unit. Her emotionless face. In the midst of it all, he recalls something funny, something strange; it wasn't the first time they met. Some things were buried so deep even a full wipe of his drives couldn't delete them. 

Iteration after iteration after iteration. Repeating the motions, the words, the feelings that carved their way into his physicality. Again and again.   
  
He no longer remembers the past, but he remembers something else. 

_I was so happy to be with someone.  
  
_

He picks up another fragment. It glitches momentarily as he touches it, images flashing in the light. He sees a large complex, glass windows overhead. The roots of trees curving through the cement. A broken pipe pours water into the floor below. Rays of sun illuminate grass underfoot.

_If you want to call me_ **▓▓▓▓▓** , _it's totally okay._

The words take him back to a place he vaguely remembers, walking along side someone whose voice was quiet but ever constant. She refuses him, of course. He can't remember why this makes him smile so.  He liked teasing her, didn't he? Between his remarks and her dismissal were the remnants of another life they must have once shared. The moments she let her guard down. Her quiet compliments. The way she guided him, a silent protector despite her true function. Orders were orders, she said once. He was ordered, too, to do something. There was something he had to protect. What was it?

 

The sound of birds brings him back to base reality. He stands up, watching them fly off into the distance. As he watches, something catches the corner of his eye. A white blade, resting in a sheath of stone. A satchel of sorts hangs from it. He approaches them both, putting the satchel over his shoulder automatically, as if it was meant to be there somehow.

The sword slides out of its rock. He holds it up to the light, running a finger along the flat side of its blade. Something comes back to him. Muscle memory activates. Another fragment obtained. This time, he remembers the feeling of sand in his shoes. Somehow, he isn't sure if this is truly his memory as the images play in his mind. He watches his own body writhe underneath himself, eyes blinded red with a virus. His hands aren't his own. They're slender, feminine, and they're shaking as he holds a different blade above his counterpart's neck.   
  
Then, the sword comes down. All struggle ceases. _Black box signal confirmed lost._ In the silence of the temple, he hears his own voice. 

_Goodbye,_ **▓▓** _._

Ah. So these were her memories.  
The memories of someone far too kind for the task she'd been given. A weight upon shoulders that never wanted to carry it. It all hits him at once, a dizzying flurry of voices, both his and hers melding together into one. He hears the sound of laughter. The promises they made. The way she would smile at him. Bits and pieces of past selves he never knew. Yet, it's not enough to put together. Incomplete retrieval. Paths with dead ends where data modules used to stand. 

He still can't remember her name. 

_Goodbye,_ **▓▓** _._

Again, his voice echoes.

 

He realizes he's been standing there, gripping her sword. He faces the sun pouring from the canopy above. He's crying again, but he doesn't quite know why anymore. The tears fall from his chin without a sound, without a reason he can discern from the mess of fragments jumbled together in his mind. The recollections of something so precious, lost but not forgotten.  
  
He wonders if the persistence of memory is enough proof for a soul. Enough to escape from this lifeless hull of metal he inhabits.  
This question of all things seems to linger when all else is fractured beyond repair.

He reaches out into the light above him.   
It's warm, he thinks. He closes his eyes. He can't remember the last time the sun felt so lovely.

In the absence of purpose, of identity, he can feel something push him forward despite everything. It's not programming this time. It's nothing like the protocols once written into his consciousness.

It's something else entirely. A gentle voice inside him, urging him to do one thing:

  
_Live._

_Live, for you deserve to be loved by this world._  
  
  
He stands there, in the silence, for a long time.   
  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> I rarely write fanfiction but I really wanted more material for Nier: Automata that I felt could've been explored more in depth in the game itself. Hopefully this serves as something of an alternate, still bittersweet ending. I don't think I pulled off what I wanted to here, but w/e I guess. I wanted to contribute something while the feeling was fresh, so here's my attempt.


End file.
